Bouncing Around the Room

Relistening to this show shortly after relistening to 12/30/15, and I have to say, Bouncing Around The Room is the lamest standalone Phish song I can think of to be placed between Mike's Song and Weekapaug Groove. To my ears, the song's rhythm and melody are too similar to the surrounding songs to be successful. If the band made a segue out of the end riff into the Weekapaug intro, that would be a big improvement. I like Bouncin', and I'll take BATR in a set anytime, anywhere else but here.

Nobody's going to read this song history entry, so I'll use this space to say this: I absolutely love this song and always get a kick out of hearing it, because this (like, I'm guessing, for many others) was my entrance to Phish, via the version that kicks off A Live One. It's a beautiful song, with a great vocal part, and it's probably hard to see that now if you've heard it as many times as I have (let alone somebody, like, @johnnyd or whoever). And sometimes that's the hardest thing to do as a fan of anything, let alone Phish - try to imagine the sheer joy and wonder of encountering something for the first time, in comparison to encountering it for the nth. I have been a Dylan fan for as long as many of the vets on this board have been Phish fans, and it's hard to feel that *exact* feeling of astonishment I felt the first time I ever heard Like A Rolling Stone, and yet I still *try* to, and sometimes I still get close. And sometimes I get that feeling when I listen to Jokerman (well, mainly the Letterman version), or Love Sick, or High Water (For Charley Patton), as well, because a good song is a good song is a good song, whether the writer is a babyfaced Woody Guthrie acolyte in 1962 or a weathered old man popping up randomly in Victoria's Secret commercials. This is what I think fandom is really about, in a lot of ways - finding that feeling of joy, letting it carry you in times when you really need it (because when does your fandom of Phish, or Scorcese, or Klimt, mean the most to you besides when you really need it?), and trying your best to keep it as fresh as possible. I hope that made sense.

Oh yeah, and the Providence Bowie really isn't THAT bad. I still prefer 6/18/94, though.

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